Without doubt Boeing Flying Fortress B-17F 41-42285 Memphis Belle and
her crew generate an image that is an all-American icon. Indeed, it has
been claimed that the Memphis Belle is in the top five of the most
famous American aircraft of all time. In September, 1942, a new Flying
Fortress was delivered at Bangor, Maine, to a crew of ten eager American
lads headed by Robert K. Morgan, a lanky 24-year-old USAAF pilot from
Asheville, N. C. The boys climbed aboard, flew their ship to Memphis,
Tenn. and christened her Memphis Belle in honor of Morgan's fiancée,
Miss Margaret Polk of Memphis, and then headed across the Atlantic to
join the US Eighth Air Force in England.
Between November 7 1942 and May 17 1943 they flew the Memphis Belle over
Hitler's Europe twenty-five times. They dropped more than 60 tons of
bombs on targets in Germany, France and Belgium. They blasted the
Focke-Wulf plant at Bremen, locks at St. Nazaire and Brest, docks and
shipbuilding installations at Wilhelmshaven, railway yards at Rouen,
submarine pens and power houses at Lorient, and airplane works at
Antwerp. They shot down eight enemy fighters, probably got five others
and damaged at least a dozen. Memphis Belle flew through all the flak
that Hitler could send up to them. She slugged it out with Goering's
Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. She was riddled by machine gun and
cannon fire. Once she returned to base with most of her tail shot away.
German guns destroyed a wing and five engines. Her fuselage was shot to
pieces but Memphis Belle kept going back.
The Memphis Belle crew has been decorated 51 times. Each of the 10 has
received the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and three Oak
Leaf Clusters. The 51st award was Sergeant Quinlan's Purple Heart.
